4 ms·

While I think you hit the nail on the head, I think what we're seeing is a belief that the money being invested by billionaires is not doing anything useful, th

While I think you hit the nail on the head, I think what we're seeing is a belief that the money being invested by billionaires is not doing anything useful, that's why people are calling for it to be taken by the government and redistributed.

vlunkr 5y ago
Probably because people view billionaires as mustache-twirling villains and have absolutely no idea what they do with their time or money.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  Rather we do have some idea what they do with their time and money: influence politics, lobby for regulatory capture, lobby against societally beneficial regulation, bust unions, rent-seek, astroturf, form monopolies and oligopolies, have outsized carbon footprints, avoid paying anything back to society, commit crimes and get away with them, etc. We see them as mustache-twirling villains because, well, they act like mustache-twirling villains.
  - pmoriarty 5y ago
    They also form dynasties of generations of extremely wealthy children, grand-children, and grand-grand-children, etc. It's arguable whether the people who originally accumulated all this wealth "earned" it (when many of them in large part merely took the wealth their employees made), but their descendants who just inherit their money certainly have in no way earned it. So should they get to keep it? For an insightful look in to the world of inherited wealth, see the documentary Born Rich[1], made by the heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune, where he interviews all his other friends, who, like him, were born in to enormously wealthy families. [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sD3pG74Wv8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sD3pG74Wv8
- danaris 5y ago
  Anyone who has amassed a fortune in the billions has necessarily done so through one of only two ways: exploiting the labour of very large numbers of poorly-paid people, or receiving it from those who have done so. Meanwhile, they have seen the plight of the billions of human beings who live in poverty and want, and chosen to use their vast resources almost purely to make more for themselves, rather than dedicate to alleviating such suffering even enough that their lifestyle is the slightest bit inconvenienced. The sanctity of "property ownership" is not so sacred a principle that it should take priority over wholly preventable widespread suffering and death. There is no moral argument that could possibly support this much of humanity's productive output being hoarded by so few, rather than going to improve the world in a myriad of ways.
Geee 5y ago
That is because every good investment causes deflation, which in other words is increased economic efficiency. Capital must be misallocated in order to create inflation. It's a huge misconception that inflation is good for the economy. What actually happens, is that the economy on the whole gets more inefficient and wealth concentrates.
- lamontcg 5y ago
  Inflation does not cause wealth concentration. Inflation acts as a tax on hoarding money and reduces wealth concentration.
  - Geee 5y ago
    Wealthy don't hoard money. They hoard assets which appreciate with inflation, and they can get cheap debt against their assets. Inflation affects the poor the most, because their net worth is in cash, and they are dependent on their wage which doesn't increase hand in hand with asset prices.
ryandrake 5y ago
> I think what we're seeing is a belief that the money being invested by billionaires is not doing anything useful I mean, is it doing anything useful? "Money Invested" is basically a number sitting in a giant key-value store at a brokerage, associated with a stock ticker or some other ownership totem. If I buy 100 shares of Walmart, it's not like Walmart suddenly has an extra $15,000 in their bank account they can suddenly use to improve the world. Those 100 shares or $15,000 are not really doing anything useful. They're ones and zeros in a database associating my name with a number and the string "WMT".
- gremlinsinc 5y ago
  Not only that but there's a whole industry around just redistributing these shares, fake jobs for fake valued assets ... it's all just a circus to keep us busy...
- eightysixfour 5y ago
  I did not mean for my statement to suggest that it is doing something useful, just that the belief (either way) is what matters here.

vlunkr 5y ago

Probably because people view billionaires as mustache-twirling villains and have absolutely no idea what they do with their time or money.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
Rather we do have some idea what they do with their time and money: influence politics, lobby for regulatory capture, lobby against societally beneficial regulation, bust unions, rent-seek, astroturf, form monopolies and oligopolies, have outsized carbon footprints, avoid paying anything back to society, commit crimes and get away with them, etc. We see them as mustache-twirling villains because, well, they act like mustache-twirling villains.
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  They also form dynasties of generations of extremely wealthy children, grand-children, and grand-grand-children, etc. It's arguable whether the people who originally accumulated all this wealth "earned" it (when many of them in large part merely took the wealth their employees made), but their descendants who just inherit their money certainly have in no way earned it. So should they get to keep it? For an insightful look in to the world of inherited wealth, see the documentary Born Rich[1], made by the heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune, where he interviews all his other friends, who, like him, were born in to enormously wealthy families. [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sD3pG74Wv8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sD3pG74Wv8
danaris 5y ago
Anyone who has amassed a fortune in the billions has necessarily done so through one of only two ways: exploiting the labour of very large numbers of poorly-paid people, or receiving it from those who have done so. Meanwhile, they have seen the plight of the billions of human beings who live in poverty and want, and chosen to use their vast resources almost purely to make more for themselves, rather than dedicate to alleviating such suffering even enough that their lifestyle is the slightest bit inconvenienced. The sanctity of "property ownership" is not so sacred a principle that it should take priority over wholly preventable widespread suffering and death. There is no moral argument that could possibly support this much of humanity's productive output being hoarded by so few, rather than going to improve the world in a myriad of ways.

Geee 5y ago

That is because every good investment causes deflation, which in other words is increased economic efficiency. Capital must be misallocated in order to create inflation. It's a huge misconception that inflation is good for the economy. What actually happens, is that the economy on the whole gets more inefficient and wealth concentrates.

lamontcg 5y ago
Inflation does not cause wealth concentration. Inflation acts as a tax on hoarding money and reduces wealth concentration.
- Geee 5y ago
  Wealthy don't hoard money. They hoard assets which appreciate with inflation, and they can get cheap debt against their assets. Inflation affects the poor the most, because their net worth is in cash, and they are dependent on their wage which doesn't increase hand in hand with asset prices.

ryandrake 5y ago

> I think what we're seeing is a belief that the money being invested by billionaires is not doing anything useful I mean, is it doing anything useful? "Money Invested" is basically a number sitting in a giant key-value store at a brokerage, associated with a stock ticker or some other ownership totem. If I buy 100 shares of Walmart, it's not like Walmart suddenly has an extra $15,000 in their bank account they can suddenly use to improve the world. Those 100 shares or $15,000 are not really doing anything useful. They're ones and zeros in a database associating my name with a number and the string "WMT".

gremlinsinc 5y ago
Not only that but there's a whole industry around just redistributing these shares, fake jobs for fake valued assets ... it's all just a circus to keep us busy...
eightysixfour 5y ago
I did not mean for my statement to suggest that it is doing something useful, just that the belief (either way) is what matters here.